There are some things I like here, but I'm seeing pretty much a variation on the same speech I've seen from new presidents for years.

This time for sure we'll bring spending under control. This time for sure we'll "fix" the entitlements (although I give him credit for at least recognizing that entitlements are the long-term economic killer). This time for sure we'll fix education, energy, health care, and all the evils of the world.

Heard it from Bush. Heard it from Clinton. Heard it from Reagan and Gingrich.

But in Congress? "The spending that keeps me in office is the spending I'm going to vote for." Obama will founder on that reef in the same way the other presidents have. I doubt that a dedicated crowd-pleaser like him will be any more likely to wield a veto pen than Bush did, but I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

Government "investment" always ends up being directed to people and things that are politically connected, not where it will create any real new wealth above and beyond what was spent on it. It will be no different now than it has been for years. Oddly, truly profitable ideas don't seem to have a lot of trouble finding private investment money.

Have we forgotten the Great Energy Investments of the 70s? Windmills sprouting on every hill here in California? It's been thirty years. How much energy are we getting from wind? Incidentally, does the word "nuclear" even appear in this speech?

The graph below is not the result of Bush policies alone. Nor is it about health care costs, which rise on a steady curve. It's about money being gobbled up by special interests all across the political spectrum after the fence around the trough, already full of holes, was taken down completely. I'll tell you one thing for free: the government paying for even more health care than it does now is not going to improve it.